February 15, 2010

brisbane crit reconnaissance

I rode out to Sierra Point today to preride the course for the next weekend’s Ronde van Brisbeen criterium. I decided to do so after watching SWoo’s video from last year’s race and realizing this was not your typical four turn crit.

The course essentially loops around the Sierra Point cyclocross course. The start/finish straight is the same (but reverse direction) piece of pavement as the cyclocross race.

While I was figuring out the course, I saw two kids playing in the dirt on some mini dirt bike. This made me regret not riding the F1X!

The course itself is really short (0.6 miles), but there are only two straights where you can “rest”. The remainder of the course has turns, a single hairpin, and some sections that narrow. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ride the hairpin section at full speed because you ride on the wrong side of the road. It will be interesting riding the hairpin in a big group.

The course was still foggy at 11:30, and while it wasn’t bad enough to hamper visibility too much, we race at 8:00 next weekend.

This will be my first “real” race on an unusual course, so it will be interesting to see how the race goes. I’m hoping for a clean and safe race!